'Guerra Quality Meats' Expands With New Takeout Spot

Robert Guerra is a family man. He co-owns Guerra Quality Meats (490 Taraval St.) with his brother, Paul, and his cousin, John, and has worked full-time in the multi-generational butcher shop since graduating high school in ’91. He greets his customers like kin, with embraces and Italian phrases. When children follow their parents into the market, Robert asks when they can don aprons and start working.

“Hopefully the next generation will want to take it over,” Robert says.

Part of the effort to ensure Guerra’s longevity will open next month. Guerra’s To Go, located up the block at 345 Taraval, is scheduled to open on Feb. 6th, after three months of renovations to the former Supreme Cleaners, a dry cleaning hub in an old Freemason building.

Robert Guerra in front of the soon-to-be-unveiled Guerra's To Go.

With the new location, the Guerras hope to provide familiar lunch and dinner options to the families and Sunset residents who rely on their meat selection and cooking tips.

Robert says that busy parents looking to optimize dinnertime, and customers whose enthusiasm for cooking has waned, will be attracted by the new shop’s convenience and affordability.

“Some people are paying 800-900 bucks a week, just going out to dinner,” he says. “It’s a mortgage. You can buy a house for that.”

The menu will include beef bourguignon, handmade lasagnas, an entire barbecue section, and, for dessert, panettone bread pudding and Stemma gelato, made by Robert’s wife, Nicole.

Guerra’s has been a Sunset staple since 1954, when Robert’s father and uncle—recently arrived from Lucca, Italy—opened the business and entered into competition with the nine other butcher shops that then punctuated Taraval’s stretch to the ocean.

Deli line at the original Guerra's location.

Today, Guerra’s is one of the few remaining butcher shops in the Sunset. With polished concrete floors and neon signage, Guerra’s To Go will evoke the decade in which Guerra's got its start.

“People like things that have been in their neighborhood for a long time,” Robert says. “It’s going to be an extension of what we already have.”

Once it debuts Feb. 6th, Guerra’s To Go will be open daily from 10:30am-8:30pm.

Thanks to tipster Stephanie for the tip. See something interesting while you’re out and about? Text Hoodline and we’ll see what we can find: (415) 200-3233.